Changing Science

I'm curious to see what the results are from Vox's asking people how they would change science.  In my opinion there are lots of little things that could be better, but much of the problems faced by science today has more to do with funding and money than any other single item.  In particular, I think that the common use of science departments as piggy banks for universities cuts off a lot of potential science, and hurts science education at those universities.

My solution is simple: better funding of public universities (general funds, not department specific).  I submitted a [poorly organized] response to them to that end.  The funding of universities (and science) is very complex, but the dramatic relative cuts in funding from states have led to the business style administrations that are more common than they used to be.  Universities need a lot of money to operate.  Some comes from student tuition and fees, some from private donations/endowments, some from grants and some (particularly for public/state schools) comes from government funding.

It used to be that quite a bit came from government funding (yes, I could probably find out how much but this is not a research paper), but the combination of decades of Republican tax cuts (which require subsequent spending cuts) compounded by the current lesser depression has shrunk that part down.  Costs keep going up, however, and schools need to make up the difference.  So tuition has risen...sharply, but that isn't enough. One of the places a university can find extra money is the grants that professors are awarded.

There are some different ways that universities get money from professor grants, but for every ten dollars of granted funds a university may get $3-5 of that.  (Note: grants aren't all specified the same way.  Sometimes a $1M grant means that the professor gets $500-700k, sometimes it means the professor gets $1M and the grant will pay the university whatever over that is necessary to make sure the professor gets the award total).  Science grants are particularly nice ways to get money since they tend to be larger than grants in other departments/colleges.  Some of this is because of the often expensive equipment necessary for science.  Some of it is personnel, and some of it is, honestly, a value judgement.  Most people consider science research more "wothwhile" compared to, say, humanities or fine arts research.  (There is a bit of economics at play too, since there can be some financial rewards via technological advancement, but that often does not flow back to the grantor--particularly when the grantor is the government--it may, however, flow back to the university.)

The fact that science departments can be seen as profit centers for the university has some [potential] consequences.  Most obvious is the publish or perish mentality, though that would probably be better reworded as "get funded or get out".  While publications were once the hallmark of quality the number and quantity of grants fills that roll today.  That isn't inherently bad, or it wouldn't be in a world where quality research could always find funding, but that isn't the world we live in.

Yet even accepting that there is another problem: established professors, have an easier time maintaining funding and getting new funding than those starting out.  There are also "superstar" professors who have become funding juggernauts.  This is easy to understand since bigger name professors tend to get higher quality students/post docs who do good work (sometimes developing that work) which further advances the name/opportunities of the professor.  There are ebbs and flows and, again, this isn't by itself terrible since it can still lead to really good science, but the financial power these professors have at the universities has some downsides.

One is they often can negotiate contracts where they teach very little (sometimes not at all).  Ok, yea, they are teaching their grad students/post docs but someone still needs to teach the undergrad classes/labs. That means hiring more profs, but they can also demand large salaries against a university that needs their money in part because they aren't funded well enough, and that can mean less cash for other professors, so now instead of hiring a tenure-track position, they are hiring adjuncts: basically glorified post docs that get minimal salary and poor to no benefits.  PhD's teaching science as adjuncts at universities can be compensated more poorly than our under-compensated high school teachers.

Another issue with these super-profs is that their talents (mostly the one for getting lots of grant money to roll in) are in high demand.  The number of senior positions available at universities is larger than ever, while the number of entry level tenure-track positions is dwindling.  So while well funded big name professors can go pretty much wherever they want, aspiring researchers have to fight a lot harder just to get in the door.  (Note: large private research institutions still do hire a fair number of entry levels, but getting that job a Harvard, which has always been difficult, is even harder today since there are fewer StateU positions to go around.)

I should add in: super-profs are great.  They nurture talent, their labs can be sources for scientific breakthroughs, they can be good for public outreach (more of a mixed bag here but still).  Were it not for universities being desperate to get more money these profs would still exist, but the universities they work at would not be so beholden to them, and more people would have the chance to find their way to that roll.  Also, maybe the students would be getting better education.

Journalistic Neutrality

Further my last post/comment is this Greenwald article.  I think that there is another side of the coin which is journalistic objectivity, which is also probably not historically representative (especially if you go back a century or two) but which is important and is fairly rare to find today.

Objectivity and Neutrality sound like similar things--and I think the big media outlets operate as though they are the same--but they are not and they have dramatically different effects on how journalism [could] work.  Neutrality is everything Greenwald describes: it is failing to say an obviously bad thing is bad or that an obviously good thing is good. Objectivity requires mediation that understands facts and counters lies.

I think Vox generally tries to be objective, and sometimes but not always neutral.  CNN certainly pushes neutrality often at the expense of objectivity.  MSNBC is fairly show dependent: Maddow and Hayes are fairly objective (though with a definite point of view), Matthews is neutral and not really objective (and most likely thinks of himself as such), O'Donnell and Scarborough are really neither but again they take on airs as though they are.  Fox is neither neutral nor objective.  

Most of the bigger left leaning journalistic entities are more objective than not (fairly easy since most facts align well with more liberal positions).

In the case of journalist as mediator (whether between people as in a debate or just when relaying a story managing to convey relevant facts and appropriate conclusions) objectivity is obviously quite important.  For other types of journalism, namely opinion pieces, it seems like it would be less so but that isn't really the case.  Even opinion pieces should be supported by facts, and claims of relevance that are both true and appropriate.  It's why I have been bitching a bit about some of Krugman's recent pieces, and that's why pretty much nothing on Fred Haitt's crayon scribble page is worth the effort of reading.

One Little Problem With That

Reading through this Vox piece on the Internet's effect on politics is interesting, but I'm struck by a particular note where Timothy discusses the downsides. He states:

...Scurrilous rumors spread more easily. It's harder to hold candidates responsible for their misstatements.
...
On the right, Republican candidates have been proposing tax plans that are several times as large as the George W. Bush tax cuts. Maybe you think big tax cuts are a good idea, but candidates like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have also been pledging to boost military spending and balance the budget. There's no way they can deliver on all these promises simultaneously.

This is actually kind of a bad argument to make since it is the media's utter failure in halting the spread of "scurrilous rumors", particularly with respect to the Clintons and to never hold any Republican plan to light, and e.g. allowing things like climate change to be "debated" between an actual scientist and a political consultant, that has led people away from those outlets and toward more obviously biased but in some cases more accurate reporting venues (particularly on the left).

This is Why I Won't Vote Clinton in the Primary

Bernie Sanders was right about US involvement in Latin America in the past 50 years.  Hillary attacked him for it.  The US government repeatedly did fucking awful things like supporting vicious dictators and guerrilla coups against democratically elected governments.  Instead of conceding the point she decided to go after him by making it seem like he was in favor of the horrible things done by Castro in Cuba.

Poor vs. Wealthier, College Degree Edition

I have a feeling this is a network effect.  Basically: wealthier people who get college degrees have a better network to plug into via family/family friends than do poorer people.  This makes it easier to get jobs straight out of college, and that makes a big difference down the road (promotions, experience...).  A college degree is nice, but it doesn't by itself get you a job.  Having better connections helps a lot when it comes to finding work.  The degree is just a check-mark on the resumé (more often required now).

Not Sure That's a Good Thing

Mark Toma links a piece talking about negative interest rates (tl;dr). I don't really care about the headline question but in the conclusion (quoted) they state:

The bottom line: international experience suggests that negative interest rates...will become a permanent part of the monetary policy toolkit. If that’s right, we need not worry quite so much whether a 2% inflation target is too low. [my bold]

That last part bothers me a lot.  From an economics standpoint the main reason that a 2% inflation target is too low may be that it does not allow enough room for monetary accommodation in the face of severe shocks.  The ability to use negative rates does, in fact, ameliorate that somewhat.  From a human welfare perspective, however, that makes things worse because it will allow very low inflation to no longer be seen as much as a problem.  Higher inflation (not 10%+ but more like 4.5%) has benefits beyond central bank monetary concerns.

The two big things are: it shrinks the value of debts, and (related) it encourages growth to outrun it.  If we can look forward to 4% inflation then that means any debt we take on today is smaller.  This means that student loans are not as daunting, and that a large mortgage will become more managable (it also encourages buying over renting, which, when not overdone, is a huge part of our potential economy).  It also means that businesses have a strong financial incentive to grow and build today: debt is better taken today than tomorrow, and even for debt free businesses, their giant piles of cash losing value at 4%/year doesn't look so good and should therefore be invested.

Of course modestly higher inflation does hurt one group of people: bankers/finance types.  Because of that, it's likely off the table anyway, but this reasoning will make whatever chance a higher inflation target had vanish.  That's not a good thing for our economy.

Then What Was WWII?

I'm not sure why it hasn't come up, but with all the criticism of Friedman's paper on the effect of Sander's proposals, this line from Christina and David Romer's work seems telling:

The estimated demand - induced effects of Senator Sanders’s policies are not just implausibly large but literally incredible.

How do they explain the growth effects of WWII spending?  That happened more than a decade after the start of the great depression and followed a much stronger recovery (though still not fully recovered) but now a similar response is "literally increadible"???  I don't get it.  It's like they know history and so don't want to repeat it but the part they don't want to repeat is a the impressive economic development that started with the New Deal and then surged with WWII.

It's like they've given up on the prospect of a stronger economy.

Really Wish Krugman Would Stop This Shit

Krugman publishes a comparative plot.  Here's another plot that looks a lot different than his, under which 5% growth doesn't look even a little crazy.  Which should be used?  Well that depends a lot on how you view the models/policies, probably how long a president is in office for, and the timing for effects of said policies (which will not be implemented).  Again, Krugman should know better, which is the real problem with his anti-Bernie posts.  He argues that Sanders (and/or his supporters) are not facing reality then he turns away from reality himself.

I don't even really care who wins the Democratic primary.  I, personally, can't vote for Hillary Clinton because I am very opposed to her more militaristic foreign policy which, despite her protests, is very well represented by her vote for the Iraq war.  Bernie has lots of flaws and certainly wouldn't be my first choice for a not-Hillary candidate but that's who's left.  Krugman's continued insistence that Bernie Sanders supporters are thoughtless dreamers who don't care about reality just really pisses me off.  

At this point it seems reflexive on his part: "People disagree with me so I must be on to something, let me repeat it!"  

I really don't like being a Sanders shill (because, again, don't actually care much who wins) but lots of the dickish behavior of Clinton supporters pisses me off as much as the Bernie-bros, and it particularly pisses me off when it comes from someone like Krugman on the pages of the NYT.  The Bernie-bros are bigger assholes but they don't have the institutional megaphone that Clinton backers have (because Clinton has all the institutional support, much of which has treated Sanders as a joke from the start).

So, to supporters of both Democratic candidates:  

Your preferred candidate does not have all the answers and supporters of your preferred candidate's opponent are not deluded robotic simpletons without capacity for thought.  Stop fucking treating them as such.

(Note to supporters of any GOP nominee:  Sorry, but your preferred candidate really is either stupid, a yuge asshole or, likely, both.)

Yes, They Should All Be Available...

...Probably to everyone but definitely to researchers.  It actually does impede scientific progress for relevant research to be hidden behind paywalls.  Sure, some people/groups can afford to pay, but not all.  I'd add that there is so much research out there that may seem relevant when looking at title/abstract but if you read the actual paper you find that the details are not actually relevant at all (this may or may not be due to a poor abstract).  

Yes, in most cases you can contact an author and get access (not always...I don't have ready access to all my publications; I can get them, but it would take some effort...'course I'm not the PI), but that doesn't always help, and even if it does it dramatically increases the amount of time it's going to take to get all the relevant publications.  I hope her site stays up and that more research becomes available through it. 

Tribalism

I'm not terribly sure that it isn't as prevalent on the left, just different associations.  I am quite sure that most of the GOP base doesn't actually care about (or even like) most of the actual GOP platform. I thought that GOP party officials actually understood that but I guess not.

People who vote for Democrats want democratic policies enacted: tax the rich, improve social security, get everyone helth care, curb pollution...  People who vote for Republicans mostly just don't like people who vote for Democrats.  Oddly, though, they do like a lot of Democratic positions: they like social security and medicare, they have no problem with taxing the hell out of rich people, most of them don't really even care about stopping the gays from marrying or women from having control of their bodies beyond the fact that gays and womenfolk are more liberal and "fuck the librulz."

I've wondered in the past whether the continued rightward movement of "centrist" Democrats like Clinton would eventually lead to some Republicans taking over the liberal positions left behind (confiscatory taxing of the rich, and more generous social security/medicare, jailing the heads of corporations who destroy communities/environments).  Trump actually kind of does this.  To be fair his positions on the issues aren't exactly clear, but it doesn't matter because he hates on the libturdz and the corporate GOP both and his supporters love him for it.

Kill the Penny (and Nickel)

I know most people don't really care, but this shouldn't be difficult.  The continued existence of the penny is purely the result of lobbying by the only group (industry) that profits.  Everyone else loses and legislators should fix it. Maybe Elizabeth Warren can champion the issue in the senate?

Then we can kill the nickel and dollar bill and start minting $1 and $2 coins like a civilized nation.

More Defensive Krugman

I really don't get it.  It's fine that he supports HRC, but how is it that he can be so blind as to treat Sanders supporters the same way so many of his [right-wing] critics treat him?  Ignore substantial differences (which may be either pro-Sanders or just anti-Hillary) and construct magical straw-unicorns.

Not Understanding Krugman's Defensiveness Here

Paul Krugman clearly supports Clintion in the primary, and for sensible reasons.  But his attacks on Sanders supporters are, frankly, bonkers.  While I'm sure there are people who support Sanders for the reasons he mentions, generalizing from them is like the people who generalize from a small number of Clinton supporters who only support her because she is a woman.  It's, for lack of a better word, stupid.

I find the attacks on both of the Democratic candidates (remaining) to be pretty small minded, petty and, yes, stupid.  While it isn't surprising from many people I would think Krugman would be more thoughtful about it, but he really seems very reactionary and defensive.

I read the Vox article he quotes from and my takeaway was that this election has messed with the historical based prediction models and you can't effectively extrapolate what will happen.  If a more conventional Republican were to win, then maybe you can go back to those.  But that is looking less likely as time passes, and if the GOP nominee is Trump or Cruz or even Rubio then you are likely looking at a general that will not shape up as the historical models would predict.

Also, that Nixon - McGovern as a basis for comparison is just weird.  Yes, McGovern was a radical liberal, but Nixon was to left of much of his party's base and in many ways more liberal than most "conventional" Democrats today, including Obama and Clinton.  He was a Keynesian for God's sakes!  If you really wanted to try and parallel that election then Cruz is the McGovern equivalent and Hillary would be Nixon (she is to the right of most of her party base, Cruz is a radical conservative).  Trump is who the hell knows what, and Sanders is, in reality, only a bit more liberal than Clinton.  Mostly he is just not apologetic about his liberalism, and that matters to lots of Democrats who are tired of politicians who they vote for not representing them.  Not defending their views.

In terms of what can be accomplished, neither Clinton nor Sanders will be able to do much as president thanks to the US House (gerrymandering has pretty much guaranteed a GOP majority until 2022).  It may be that Clinton will be better at getting things done in spite of that.  It could also be that Sanders would be able to shift the Overton window such that better results become possible [in the future].

Who the fuck knows?

Crappy Statistics

Vox in talking about the liberal/moderate/conservative line and how it helps Clinton presents this chart:

This is an example of incomplete data that doesn't actually help inform.  If more conservative people call Romney liberal, Obama very liberal, and themselves very conservative, but more liberal people call Romney conservative, Obama moderate and themselves between moderate and liberal you can end up with that plot even if far more people are Obama supporters than Romney.

The perception of self vs. others is important and it is likely different between liberal and conservative individuals.  This plot is only useful if more liberal individuals and more conservative individuals have the exact same relative perception.  Nothing about that chart would imply they do.  

Obama is, on a historical scale, pretty much the same as Regan, which, at the most liberal, would put him right down the middle.  Romney, as governor would have been similar, though Romney the presidental candidate ran as closer to very conservative than moderate.  

Anyone using that chart to draw general conclusions is either lazy or bad at statistics.  Those numbers don't mean what they look like they mean.

GOP: The Party of Hucksters

Been reading about the fractures opening up between different groups in the GOP.  It's kinda hard to tell, but it seems like lots of folks are very surprised by all this (yes, mostly beltway pundits who are, historically, wrong about everything, but also the GOP party "establishment" and even some Dems). Seems to me like a pretty obvious result of the game the GOP has been playing, and I think a lot of it goes back to them becoming the anti-science party.

It's a logic issue.  Science is structured, logical, tested, verified.  You have an idea about something (hypothesis) then you run tests against that to see if it works, if it does you progress, if it does not then you rethink your hypothesis.  By rejecting science (yes, particularly evolution and now climate change) you reject that thought process, and any supporters you retain will also have rejected that thought process.  This can work short term just like a magician (wave one hand over here toward issue people in the room care about, while really you just want to do something unrelated over there), but over time you will find that there are better magicians.

Once those better "magicians" realize that you don't have to be substantive to get ahead in the GOP, they will naturally gravitate toward that party.  Eventually you have a party where large numbers of the people [running for office] don't have any particular notion of what being in the GOP means beyond "whatever I want it to mean for me at this moment" and characters like Trump and Cruz make perfect sense in this telling.

So the GOP is not united in any given policy dictate, and so even the numbered list given in the article is largely wrong.  You can find lots of exceptions to any of those points and you can find people in any of the other "camps" that drift into many of the points listed.  Trying to break the GOP down into ideologically coherent groups is a fool's errand.  There are a couple, but mostly that party has become the anti-whatever party.  Go to the GOP with whatever it is you don't like about [government, America, liberals, other religions, other races, other nations, gays, city folk...] and you can find a candidate who will parrot that emotion back to you in such a way that you will think it is their own.

The closest most commentary comes to getting at something that unifies the GOP is "whiteness", and yes, if you are a white supremacist you probably vote Republican (if you vote), but even that oversimplifies things, because whiteness isn't necessary, it's largely incidental.  In a nation where white men used to have all the power, the result of increasing equality absolutely means that white men are the "losers" of the game, so the people most likely to be drawn to an illogical anti-whatever party are much more likely to be white, and to be men.  What truly unites and defines the GOP is the anti-logic aspect.  Most clearly seen with the rejection of science that began in earnest in the 90's this is what has pushed the GOP to be the party of hucksters.

One Way: Bankruptcy

I'm not sure how the corporate law works in Germany for a VW bankruptcy and restructuring, but there's no reason to think that the world's nearly-largest automaker will cease to exist.

Policy and Presidential Candidates

Vox has a symposium up on whether policy proposals matter for presidential candidates.  Lots of back and forth but not a whole lot of answering the question.  I think Ezra's comments toward the end were the best part I read:

Ezra Klein So to offer one overarching thought here: For all kinds of reasons, I think a giant percentage of campaign coverage is useless at best, counterproductive at worst. There's demand for much more coverage than there is actually important news during the campaign, the coverage squeezes out important non-campaign stories, and the coverage often turns out to have been a really poor guide to what officials do once elected.

I think policy coverage is relatively better than most forms of campaign coverage, but the whole enterprise has some real problems that I don't think anyone actually knows how to solve.

While it was hinted at elsewhere I think that policy proposals are seen as a window into what the candidate values.  I think this is one of the reasons that Bernie Sanders resonates so well in the primary.  His policy proposals are much more in line with Democratic values and Democratic voters.  Hillary Clinton's proposals, in being "pragmatic" don't line up as well with the values of the Democratic primary voters (or, really, the general election voters).  They reflect a lack of solid values.  Dealmaking is not a value.  It is a good thing to be capable of for a president, but for a primary voter you really want to know that those deals are being made with your values in mind and with every attempt to get as much as possible in that direction.

I don't mind "pragmatic" policy proposals, but the candidates should, along with those, make it clear to voters what their ideals are, and unrealistic fantasy proposals do that.  I remember reading (and writing) quite a few complaints about Obama compromising with himself before sending bills to the floor then having to move a compromised position further to the right to get it passed.  I don't know whether it would have changed the legislation that did get passed, but it would have been nice if he had staked out a solid Democratic bill/position to start with so that the country knew where that position was, and so that the Republicans would have a harder time pushing the Overton window even further right (remember: the ACA was and is the right wing answer to universal coverage but now most people consider it a liberal bill).

Hillary Clinton's policy proposals are a continuance of this part of the Obama presidency that many [liberal] Democrats did not like.  Add that to her Iraq war vote (which is still an issue to lots of people...including me) and you get a candidate that many Democratic primary voters are not going to like.  Bernie may not be as effective, but lots of primary voters trust that he will fight for them more than they do Hillary.

Clinton vs. Sanders

I like Bernie Sanders, but I'm not so sure that he would be able to get much done as president.  I'm not a huge Clinton fan (Hillary or Bill) but I suspect she would be able to be more effective in meeting her goals as president.  That is probably the best reason to pick Hillary over Bernie (and this Vox article kind of gets there).  

My main problem with Hillary is not her pragmatism or even her "liberal creds" on domestic and social issues: it is that she is far too hawkish on the military/interventionist front.  Her single vote for the Iraq debacle is a black mark that is virtually impossible to erase, and all the talk about how knowledgeable she is on...well, everything...makes that vote even worse.  She should have known the correct way to vote (Bernie did) and she voted the wrong way, most people seem to presume for political purposes.  If it was not a pure political maneuver, then it is very strong evidence that she would, as commander in chief, be more likely to err on the side of bombing, invading and killing than on the side of peace and diplomacy.  

I'm not sure how I can vote for a candidate who is supposedly so well versed in detail and understanding of the issues and process, yet who made such a glaringly wrong choice.  

My Thoughts Show up on Digby's Blog

In this case Digby is quoting someone else but she didn't link to it and I'm too lazy to find it so you get the link to her article.

I didn't listen to the SOTU but the morning after one of the quotes played was the "I have no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide..." and my first thought was "Bullshit!".  Obama has to know better, and it is very frustrating that he would have said that, but neither of those presidents "bridged the divide".  Their opponents hated them.  One's mere election led to succession and civil war and the other was despised but his opposition was helpless to do much since the country had placed them so firmly in the minority.

I think it is one of Obama's greatest failings that he seems (maybe still) to think that Republicans and Democrats can come together and do great things.  Politicians and people associate with R or D because they prefer one set of ideas to another.  Compromise is fine, but you can't get consensus between the parties on major things because the parties exist because of differences of opinions in those big things.

When you get control of everything you don't compromise, you do what you think is best.  If it turns out badly, your side gets tossed and the other gets a chance.  If you get control of everything then try and get a bunch of compromises through, you are dooming your own party and any hopes of getting the things your party's supporters want.  Obama has never seemed to understand that.

(Note: no, this doesn't mean I think he could have necessarily gotten much more accomplished, but he wasted years of efforts in a futile attempt, and he did dishearten lots of the Dem base that got him elected in the first place.)

Maybe...But Not Necessarily

I suppose this should get filed under problems with statistics.  This Vox article is talking about maps showing student loan balances and delinquencies (which is sourced from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth), and while it may seem that their conclusion is logical, it may not be factual.

They are stating that since the high delinquencies map is practically the inverse of the high loan balances that people with lots of student loans are doing ok while those who are having problems don't have high balances, and that seems to follow but maybe not.

The problem is the way averages work.  If one area has lots of college grads with student loans and most of them are doing well, then it would follow that you get low delinquency rates, but also that the loan balances would be higher (high density college grads would imply greater need for higher education to live/work in the area, which would mean more and more expensive education).  On the other hand places with lots of college dropouts and with people not generally doing well, are likely to have lower debt and higher delinquencies.  BUT without knowing the delinquency rates and the distribution of the loan balances you can't say anything about the relationship.

What you want to see is a plot of delinquency rates at various loan balance ranges, and maybe one showing loan balances vs. income level.  This doesn't mean the drawn conclusion is wrong, but just that it shouldn't have been drawn in the first place.